My sleep monster

I seriously believe my sweet little boy is working for the government to do sleep deprivation torture on unsuspecting civilians. This kid will only do short 30 minute cat naps in his crib about twice a day. However if you hold him he will sleep a little bit longer. The past couple of night he has been getting up almost every hour standing up in his crib screaming. It is a little funny at first but the humor quickly goes away at 3 am.

I have tried everything. I am not a fan of the "cry it out" method but I have done Ferber with some success. I blame myself for this little monster I created. Let's be honest, I HATE hearing him cry. The first few nights of doing the Ferber method were torture. I didn't get any sleep which made me question why I was doing it in the first place. The reason why I am doing this is so I can get sleep right? I would always make an excuse why I needed to pick up my boy. I would say, "Well, he is teething so he needs a little extra TLC." or "He is sick". When I mean "sick" i am talking about maybe a stuffy nose.

The Ferber worked ok for a while until one of my excuses came up. Then I would go back to rocking him back to sleep. Don't get me wrong, I love rocking him to sleep. I know that soon he won't want me to hold him. I know that is the reason for his lack of sleep. He likes to be held when its time for bed. I just don't know what to do. I know he needs to learn to soothe himself but its hard when he is standing up in his crib screaming for any period of time. He calms down after i hold him and he will go back to sleep but if I put him down, he screams again.

Michael and I no longer take night shifts because it is impossible for 1 person to take over 1 night and still be able to get up in the morning to go to work. I am probably going to try Ferber again. I know I can't keep going on 2 hours of sleep forever.